17. Jacinthe #2
“I just want him to notice me. Sometimes I think he forgets I’m even there.
” She pauses to sniffle again and swipes at her eyes.
“He forgets a lot. He’s late all the time, and he doesn’t know my favourite books or my favourite shows or what music I like.
He doesn’t even remember to call me Shel and not Shelby anymore, even though I’ve told him, like, a million times. ”
I had no idea her full name was Shelby, but even if I had, I can’t imagine calling any kid a name they don’t want to be called.
The thought of someone doing that to their own kid makes me ball my hands into fists while something hot shoots through my bloodstream. I take a few deep breaths through my nose so I don’t end up punching the hay bales.
Thankfully, Shel doesn’t seem to notice. She wraps her coat tighter around herself and buries her face in the collar. I have to lean in a little closer to hear what she says next.
“I don’t know if he even likes me.”
She gasps, and then the tears really start pouring again. Her body shakes like it’s too tiny to hold the force of her sobs.
I feel like the floor is falling out from under me, and all I can do is hold my arms out for her.
She tips over and lands in my lap like an exhausted kitten fished out of a river. I pat her on the back and stroke her pink-tinged hair out of her face while she fights to catch her breath.
“Oh, chérie ,” I murmur.
My throat has gone thick, and the edges of my vision are blurring, but I manage to hold myself together. She doesn’t need me crying, even though I can feel her pain like an echo of my own.
It’s a few long minutes before she’s moved on to hiccupping and dabbing at her face with the tissue. I’m pretty sure there’s a large puddle of snot seeping into my jeans, but I don’t care. If I need to be a human Kleenex box for her, I’ll do it.
She sits up and lets out a shuddering sigh. She looks more tired than any ten year-old should have to be.
I know the feeling. I know that weight.
“I’m gonna tell you something, okay?”
She looks up at me, a flicker of something between hope and desperation in her eyes.
I hesitate.
She’s not my kid. I have no idea how Tess would want me to handle this. I could end up crossing a line. That’s the last thing I want after we barely made it through all the line-crossing we did last weekend.
I can’t do nothing , though. I can’t look at this girl, sitting here crying over her dad’s mistakes in the same hayloft where I’d come cry over my own maudit father when I was her age, and give her a bunch of half-baked bullshit instead of something that might actually help.
When I was her age, I just wanted the truth.
“Here is the thing,” I begin. “Grown-ups are dumb. We act like we are so much smarter than kids, but we’re not. In a lot of ways, we get dumber as we get older. We make everything complicated. We do not say what we mean, and we do not act how we feel.”
She scrunches her eyebrows up like I’m speaking in riddles.
“What I am trying to say is that I know your dad loves you,” I explain, “and I know he likes you too. You are a great kid, and anyone would be lucky to be your parent. He knows that. Of course he does, but maybe right now, he’s not acting like it.”
I dig my fingers into the hay bale to keep from making fists again. There’s no maybe here. It sounds like Baron is being an absolute shithead, but it’s not my place to bash her dad in front of her.
Besides, this isn’t about him. It’s about Shel and what she’s going through.
“That hurts. My dad…he forgot a lot too,” I say. “A lot of people would just tell you that your dad is trying his best and that people make mistakes, but I am not going to say that. It just makes everything more confusing.”
Hearing that kind of reassurance never made a difference to me. It felt like all the adults were keeping a secret, because how could my dad love me as much as everyone said if he didn’t treat me the way they told me he was supposed to?
“I do not have it all figured out,” I admit.
“Even now. What I know is that it hurts when people who love you let you down again and again. It hurts when they are not the person you need them to be. It hurts when they do not change, and the really hard part is that there are no magic words to make it better. I wish I could tell you something that would make it not hurt anymore, but what I say doesn’t fix it, right? ”
She shakes her head and then nestles her chin into the coat’s collar again.
“Yeah,” she says in a quiet voice. “Everybody says he’s trying to do better, but he never does.”
There are a few choice names for Baron tap dancing on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow them down.
“I don’t know your dad, of course,” I say instead. “Maybe he will. I hope he does. I just don’t want to give you more words that won’t help.”
“So what helps?” she asks, her eyes flitting over my face like I’m hiding the answer there. “Does anything help?”
“Your people help.”
I have no idea where the hell that came from. I’m not even sure what I mean, but Shel is blinking up at me like every word is a lifeline I’m throwing her, so I have no choice but to figure it out.
“Your family and your friends,” I explain. “The people who are there, you know?”
I feel like I’ve tapped into some hidden spring inside me, like an underground river breaking the surface. The words gush out like a geyser that’s been waiting to burst for years.
“You have so many people who love you, Shel. You have so many people who are going to show up for you. I know it feels like…like there’s this gap, you know?”
I tap my chest, right over my heart.
“Like every time your dad lets you down, there’s this hole that gets bigger, but you don’t have to let it. You have so many people who can fill that up for you, and maybe it won’t always be a perfect fit, but you don’t have to go around living like you’re empty.”
She places her hand on her chest, mirroring my pose, her fingertips pressing into her sternum.
“That really helps?”
I nod. “It really does.”
She shimmies closer, and without a word, she rests her head on my shoulder.
In that moment, I forget all about gaps and holes and broken promises.
In that moment, I feel like pure gold is pouring into my heart, warm and bright and unbreakable.
It’s heavy, but it’s precious. It feels like a gift I’ve committed to treasuring for the rest of my life.
It’s fucking terrifying.
I go rigid. I don’t even breathe. I sit there and let Shel lean on me while my mind races to figure out what the hell is going on.
She’s not my kid. She’s not my responsibility. She hasn’t even been here that long, but in this moment, I can’t picture a version of this place without her.
Or her mom.
I don’t know what that means.
My head is still spinning when Shel straightens up a few minutes later. She stretches her arms above her head in a way that makes her look just like Tess.
My heart lurches, and so does my stomach.
This is way too much.
I’m not just crossing lines. I’m tearing through them like I’m stuck on a bolting horse with no reins in sight. I’m letting this all mean something I’ve got no business even thinking about.
I have to get back in control.
Shel swings her feet over the edge of the hay bale and stretches her toes out to point the tip of one of her sneakers at her guitar.
“I guess I should just throw this guitar out, huh?”
I shake my head, snapping myself out of the spiral and jumping on the change of topic.
“ Quoi ?” I demand. “What are you talking about, you goof? You are not throwing this away!”
She gives the instrument a dubious look and shakes her head. “I just learned it to make him like me.”
I push myself to my feet and then bend to grab the guitar by the neck.
“Do you like guitar?” I ask.
I hold the guitar out, the snapped string bobbing like a ribbon, and Shel takes it and settles it on her lap.
“I mean, it’s fun,” she says, tracing her finger along the frets. “I’m just not good at it.”
I plant my hands on my hips. “You don’t have to be good at everything you think is fun. You can just have fun. That is enough.”
She shrugs and then shifts the guitar higher up her lap to fidget with the end of the broken string.
“Listen. Don’t throw the guitar out. I have an extra set of strings in the house,” I tell her. “You can have them. If you like guitar, you should keep playing.”
She stretches the coils of the string out and then lets them snap back into place.
“I don’t know.”
“You wanna know why I learned guitar?” I ask.
She looks up at me. “Why?”
“To make a girl like me.”
Her eyes widen. “Did it work?”
I bark a laugh.
“ Pas du tout . She told me I made the guitar sound like a dying cat. Then she told me she was going to prom with somebody else.”
Shel covers her mouth with her hand, her eyes wide, like she’s not sure if she’s allowed to laugh.
“But you know what?” I continue. “I kept playing, and I have a lot of fun with it, even though I am not amazing.”
Shel nods, holding out for half a second before a snort makes her cheeks balloon out behind her hand.
“Do you still sound like a dying cat?”
“ Ben là !” I say, waving her question off. “I never sounded like a dying cat. That girl was being dramatic.”
Shel squints like she doesn’t quite trust me, but she lets it slide.
“Okay, so, if I keep playing, maybe you could show me some things?” she asks. “I know where to put my fingers. I just can’t figure out the whole strumming thing.”
I give her an understanding nod. “Strumming is a bi?—”
I cut myself off before I can say something that is definitely on the forbidden words list.
“It is hard,” I correct. “Strumming is hard. I will show you a few things.”
She claps her hands and beams at me, the guitar jostling in her lap.
“Yay! Can we do it today?”
I didn’t think I could feel even more relieved to have the afternoon free, but the way her whole face lights up when I nod makes me want to shout one of the prayers of thanks printed on the kitschy knickknacks Maman is always filling the house with.
“Well, first we need to re-string you,” I say. “We can go do that now, and maybe we will have time for a quick lesson before you go to your friend’s house.”
Shel slings the guitar strap over her shoulder and jumps to her feet.
“Oh, right. I forgot I’m going to see Ali today. What time is it?”
I pull my phone out of my pocket and turn the screen on.
“Almost one.” I let out a whistle. “Damn. I mean, darn. We should get up to the house. Your mom will be here soon to drive you.”
Shel scampers off towards the doorway, but before she heads down the stairs, she comes rushing back over to throw her arms around my waist. The guitar thumps against her back and nearly slides off her shoulder, but she doesn’t let go.
“Thank you, Jacinthe,” she mumbles into my jacket.
More molten gold drips into my heart.
I hold her tight.
“Any time, chérie .”
She steps out of the hug and skips off towards the door like she hasn’t just left my whole world spinning.